you learn who Lady Vargrave was? There is evidently
some mystery thrown over her birth and connections; and, from what I
can hear, this arises from their lowliness. You know that, though I have
been accused of family pride, it is a pride of a peculiar sort. I
am proud, not of the length of a mouldering pedigree, but of some
historical quarterings in my escutcheon,--of some blood of scholars and
of heroes that rolls in my veins; it is the same kind of pride that
an Englishman may feel in belonging to a country that has produced
Shakspeare and Bacon. I have never, I hope, felt the vulgar pride that
disdains want of birth in others; and I care not three straws whether my
friend or my wife be descended from a king or a peasant. It is myself,
and not my connections, who alone can disgrace my lineage; therefore,
however humble Lady Vargrave's parentage, do not scruple to inform me,
should you learn any intelligence that bears upon it.

I had a conversation last night with Evelyn that delighted me. By some
accident we spoke of Lord Vargrave; and she told me, with an enchanting
candour, of the position in which she stood with him, and the
conscientious and noble scruples she felt as to the enjoyment of a
fortune, which her benefactor and stepfather had evidently intended
to be shared with his nearest relative. In these scruples I cordially
concurred; and if I marry Evelyn, my first care will be to carry them
into effect,--by securing to Vargrave, as far as the law may permit,
the larger part of the income; I should like to say all,--at least till
Evelyn's children would have the right to claim it: a right not to be
enforced during her own, and, therefore, probably not during Vargrave's
life. I own that this would be no sacrifice, for I am proud enough to
recoil from the thought of being indebted for fortune to the woman I
love. It was that kind of pride which gave coldness and constraint to my
regard for Florence; and for the rest, my own property (much increased
by the simplicity of my habits of life for the last few years) will
suffice for all Evelyn or myself could require. Ah, madman that I am!
I calculate already on marriage, even while I have so much cause for
anxiety as to love. But my heart beats,--my heart has grown a dial that
keeps the account of time; by its movements I calculate the moments--in
an hour I shall see her!

Oh, never, never, in my wildest and earliest visions, could I have
fancied that I should love